Rush Limbaugh Is the 21st Century's Foolish Bigot

Weighing in on the Rush Limbaugh-Sandra Fluke controversy, Detroit Free Press columnist Rochelle Riley calls the pundit a terrorist because he spews hate in order to instill fear and coerce others into embracing his singular point of view.

In her Detroit Free Press column, Rochelle Riley determines that Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist in light of the Sandra Fluke controversy. Like terrorists, she says, he uses hate speech to instill fear in order to coerce others into adopting his singular point of view.

Webster's describes terrorism as "the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion."

But with more than 100 definitions of the word, some including violence and some not, it is easy to understand that terrorism is not one thing; it is many things.

So as advertisers continued to quit conservative Rush Limbaugh's radio show Monday because of his hate speech against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke for testifying before Congress about birth control, it has become clear:

Limbaugh uses hate speech to instill fear, to cause some Americans to hate others, to coerce others to his singular point of view.

So ... Rush Limbaugh is a terrorist.

His bombast and hate speech five days a week helps foment civil war and serves no purpose other than to widen the rift between his followers and other Americans who disagree.

No, it is not free speech. It gave up the right to be free speech in 1993 when Limbaugh referred to Chelsea Clinton, then 13, as the White House dog.

Limbaugh has been mostly unfettered. So we have to wonder: To what end? What is the point? What does he want?

It suddenly hit me. He is the late Sen. Joe McCarthy, tilting at windmills and finding the enemy in anyone at whom he points a finger. He is McCarthy, the Republican senator whose national campaign to out supposed Communists divided America.